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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24753649">Starting Over (Again?)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsolaVirtuosa/pseuds/IsolaVirtuosa'>IsolaVirtuosa</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Starting Over [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Infinite Tsukuyomi, M/M, and its aftermath</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 07:20:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,314</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24753649</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsolaVirtuosa/pseuds/IsolaVirtuosa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sasuke cannot even pretend that he is living the dream.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Starting Over [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790059</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>54</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Starting Over (Again?)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When I woke up, all I felt was pain.  Every inch of my body ached, and I couldn’t so much as open my eyes, much less move.</p><p>“Sasuke…”</p><p>I breathed in.  “Na..” I tried to speak, my voice cracking.  I cleared my throat.  “Naruto?”</p><p>“Sas’, help me,” he pleaded.  “I can’t fight it anymore.”</p><p>“I can’t move,” I whispered.</p><p>“You have to.”</p><p>I tried to open my eyes.  I felt something creeping along my cheek, and I knew.  If I didn’t move now, I would be sucked back into the Infinite Tsukuyomi.  I mustered up everything I had and rolled over.</p><p>“Oof,” Naruto grunted as I hit him.  “I don’t think that helped,” he said with a chuckle that immediately turned into a coughing fit.</p><p>“I don’t have any chakra,” I said, forcing one eye open.</p><p>Naruto lay next to me, his chest rising and falling unevenly.  “I have a little.”</p><p>“We need the rinnegan to dispel it.”</p><p>“I know that, asshole.”</p><p>I felt myself smiling.</p><p>“Shit, I missed you,” he said with a returning grin.</p><p>“So I wasn’t in your perfect world?” I scoffed.  Not that I cared.</p><p>“You were always too far away,” he said, bumping his shoulder into mine.  “Were you… did your rinnegan protect you from the Tsukuyomi?  How did you wake me up?”</p><p>I coughed, watching the blood splatter across my chest.  “It couldn’t hold me.”</p><p>“Why do you always have to sound so cool?” he groaned.  “Just answer the question normally.”</p><p>I was losing consciousness again.</p><p>“Shit, Sasuke!  Come on, we have to dispel this damn thing!”</p><p>I tried to answer, but I felt like I was under water.  My mouth was moving but nothing was coming out.</p><p>It went through me like a shockwave.</p><p>“You know how to take my chakra, right?” he said, holding my hand to his heart.</p><p>“Stop,” I gasped.  I could feel the life draining from him.</p><p>“Just enough so we can do this,” he said.</p><p>I tried to take my hand away, but it felt <em>good</em>.  I could feel my power coming back, minuscule bit by minuscule bit.</p><p>“You good?” Naruto asked, the rise of his chest getting more erratic.</p><p>I pushed the chakra into my rinnegan, feeling it flare to life.  I took my hand away quickly, and Naruto gasped in relief.  “Did I take too much?” I asked, watching him struggle to breathe.</p><p>“Nah,” he said, his eyes drifting shut.</p><p>“Naruto.”</p><p>“Just lemme rest for a second.”</p><p>“We don’t have a second,” I said, feeling the rustle of something against my leg.</p><p>“Okay,” Naruto whispered, holding out his hand to me.</p><p>We formed the seal.</p><p>“Is anything happening?” Naruto asked.  He dissolved into a coughing spell, though his fingers stayed locked tightly with mine.</p><p>“I don’t know anymore,” I said, the adrenaline I’d gotten from receiving Naruto’s chakra already fading.  It was getting harder to stay awake, so I pushed everything I had into my rinnegan.</p><p>“I sure hope it worked…” he trailed off, and I felt his fingers go slack.</p><p>I tightened my grip even as I drifted out of consciousness.</p><p>A steady beeping sound filled my ears.</p><p>I forced my eyes open and immediately regretted it, quickly shutting them against the brightness of the sun shining through the window.</p><p>We’d released the seal.  I was back in Konoha, this time for real.</p><p>There was no reason to think about the other time.</p><p>“What was your dream like?” Naruto asked for the hundredth time, sitting cross-legged at the end of my hospital bed.</p><p>“Dream-like,” I said tiredly, not looking up from the scroll I was reading.</p><p>“I told you all about mine,” he complained.</p><p>“I didn’t ask, and I definitely didn’t want to hear about it.”</p><p>“No, see, you acted like you weren’t listening but I could tell that you were listening <em>intently</em>.”</p><p>I sighed loudly to express my displeasure and continued to not look at him.</p><p>“Saaaasuke,” he complained.  He dropped his hand heavily on my leg.  “I’m bored.  And lonely.  Talk to me.”</p><p>I continued to ignore him, especially the way that hand of his was subconsciously creeping up above my knee.</p><p>He finally seemed to notice, snatching his hand away and laughing nervously.</p><p>My eyes flicked towards the window, then back to the scroll in my hand.  It was the terms of my pardon.</p><p>I hadn’t told Naruto that I’d been exiled yet.  Save that headache for another day.</p><p>“Where do you go?” he murmured, blue eyes like a beacon catching the moonlight from the window.</p><p>“Don’t ask meaningless questions,” I said, trying to look away with little success.</p><p>“But it’s like you disappear sometimes.”</p><p>There was hurt and fear in his eyes, and I felt like I was drowning.  “I’m right here, idiot.”</p><p>“You are, aren’t you?” he said, forcing a smile.  He was touching me again, this time my arm.</p><p>“It’s late,” I said, shrugging away from him.  “You should go back to your room.”</p><p>“Am I bothering you?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>He didn’t look at me as he got up to leave.</p><p>If this had been the other world, he would have turned around before closing the door.  He would have forced me to tell him what was in the scroll.</p><p>
  <em>“I’ll go with you.”</em>
</p><p>I’d laughed at him.  <em>“And what about Konoha?  I thought you were going to be the hokage,”</em> I’d scoffed.</p><p>
  <em>“I don’t need that anymore.”</em>
</p><p>The fact that I hadn’t been able to see through such a pathetic illusion was embarrassing.</p><p>Naruto was more subdued the next time he came to my room.</p><p>I thought I could tell him.  He was sitting on the chair next to my bed, spinning a kunai around his finger, still nervous and awkward from the last time I’d told him off.</p><p>This was it, this was the perfect opportunity, but every time I tried to open my mouth it stayed firmly shut because this Naruto wasn’t the Naruto from my world.  He wasn’t going to throw everything away to follow me.</p><p>It would be easier if I just disappeared.</p><p>That went about as well as could be expected.</p><p>“You were just going to leave?” he asked incredulously, blocking my path.</p><p>“I’ve been exiled,” I said with a shrug.</p><p>“Well that’s just stupid!”</p><p>I stared at him.</p><p>“We can fight this, we can change the council’s mind, we can-”</p><p>All I wanted was for him to just throw everything away and come with me.  But that wasn’t what the real Naruto would do.  I stepped around him and continued walking.</p><p>He predictably grabbed my arm and tried to speechify me into staying.</p><p>“This is what I want.”</p><p>His grip loosened enough that I could step out of it.</p><p>I hesitated.</p><p>“No it isn’t,” he whispered fiercely.</p><p>“You don’t know shit, Naruto,” I growled, shaking him away and continuing forward.</p><p>“Don’t make me go through this again,” he pleaded to my retreating back.</p><p>I didn’t answer him.</p><p>It didn’t tear me up inside to know that this was reality.  I’d always known the truth, somewhere deep inside.  It’s how I’d broken out of the genjutsu in the first place.</p><p><em>“I feel the same way,”</em>he’d told me, and the touch of his lips on mine made me want to stay inside that impossible world forever.</p><p>I had to wake up instead, rinnegan activated as I tore out of the darkness.  It wasn’t hard to find Naruto’s pod.  It took more effort than I’d like to admit to pull him from it.  My arm was infected.  I could feel the poison creeping through my veins, but I knew there was no time.  It took more than a day for my rinnegan to break through to him.  I sat in the hot sun, the remains of my arm oozing pus, trying to gather enough chakra to protect us both.</p><p>He woke up and then...</p><p>And then what?</p><p>It was like there was a hole in my memory.  I must have been delirious from the fever.</p><p>Then we undid the seal.</p><p>But…</p><p>“Sasuke!”</p><p>I’d only been out of Konoha six months, yet here he was in a little middle-of-nowhere outpost.</p><p>“Don’t you have a job or something?” I asked, looking him up and down.  I wasn’t happy to see him.  I wasn’t hopeful.</p><p>“Yeah, I’m doin’ it,” Naruto said, tapping his headband.</p><p>I looked at the woman selling vegetables.  I looked at the shack that was supposed to be an inn.  I looked at the field full of cows.</p><p>I looked back at Naruto.</p><p>“It’s you, silly,” he said cheerfully.</p><p>“What’s me?”</p><p>“You’re my job!”</p><p>“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” I said, turning around and walking away abruptly.  Half of my mouth crept up in the semblance of a smile.</p><p>“Orders from the hokage right here!” Naruto said, jumping in front of me and sticking a piece of paper in my face.</p><p>“What the hell is this crap?” I grumbled.  I snatched the paper from him and started reading it.</p><p>Naruto took one look at my face and sensibly backed away.</p><p>“So you’re just going to stalk me for a month to make sure I’m behaving properly?” I spat out.  “Be Konoha’s little spy?”</p><p>“It’s not really spying if you know that I’m here,” he pointed out.</p><p>“I don’t want you here.”</p><p>“Look, this is the only way that the Counsel might change their mi-”</p><p>“Are you still stuck on that delusional nonsense?”</p><p>“How is it delusional?!”</p><p>“Because you’re a moron.”</p><p>“Well you’re a dumb-dumb duckbutt.”</p><p>We stared at each other.</p><p>Everything felt wrong.  This wasn’t how we were supposed to be.  In my world…</p><p>I wanted to kick myself in the face.  What kind of person couldn’t let go of a dream and start living in reality?</p><p>“I bet you all the money you’re carrying that I can lose you by tomorrow,” I said.</p><p>Naruto’s eyes narrowed into slits.</p><p>I smirked at him.</p><p>“You don’t know who you’re dealing with, Uchiha!”</p><p>I continued on my way to the next town, Naruto yapping at my side.  It was like the world had clicked back into place.</p><p>I won the bet, though Naruto argued with me that I hadn’t because he found me again eventually.</p><p>“Buy us dinner at least,” I complained.  “Sore loser.”</p><p>“I didn’t <em>lose</em>!”</p><p>A month passed by quickly in a flurry of arguments and hidden smiles.</p><p>“You know you’re going to miss travelling with me,” Naruto said, poking me in the side while I tried to eat my breakfast.</p><p>I didn’t tell him that we’d travelled together for years, and that the only reason we weren’t still travelling together was because the moment he kissed me I knew that the world I was living in could not possibly be real.</p><p>“I’m gonna get you un-exiled,” he said more confidently.</p><p>We’d already had this conversation a million times.  “I won’t ever live in Konoha.  You know I won’t.  I can’t.”</p><p>“Yeah, but-”</p><p>“Naruto.”</p><p>He was quiet for a moment, staring into his rice bowl.  “You know I can’t leave Konoha.”</p><p>“No one was asking you to.”  <em>Please leave Konoha.</em></p><p>“Then what did I fight so hard for all those years?  What’s the point of it all if you just leave again?!” he demanded, his hands shaking.</p><p>“The point is that I didn’t kill the kages.  I didn’t remake the world in my image.  You won, okay?”</p><p>“This isn’t winning!” he snapped, turning the full force of his red eyes on me.  “We’re supposed to be doing this together!”</p><p>My fleeting hope was turning into dread.  “Do what?” I asked, picking up my soup and stirring the miso around.</p><p>“Rebuilding Konoha!  Rebuilding the world!  Not the way you wanted to, but the way that we want to.  Together.  As best friends!”</p><p>That last part seemed unnecessary, but it soothed the little rumbling at the back of my mind that kept saying, ‘Naruto wouldn’t say that.  Naruto wouldn’t do that.’  Because Naruto would definitely insist that the reason he wanted me to stay in Konoha was because we were friends.</p><p>But that would never be enough for me.</p><p>“Sasuke,” he said, calming back down to blue eyes and resting his hand on my shoulder.  “I need you.”</p><p>That voice in the back of my head was getting more insistent.</p><p>Naruto suddenly retracted his hand.  “You’re the only ninja who’s almost as strong as me, heh.”</p><p>I felt all the air leave my lungs.  I looked towards the window frantically.</p><p>“Sas’?  You… okay?”</p><p>I looked back to him, my breathing erratic.  “What would you say if I told you that I love you?”</p><p>His brow crinkled in confusion.</p><p>He had to reject me.  That was the only way to dispel this insane idea.</p><p>“I… haha, jerk, what are you-”</p><p>“I love you,” I said, completely seriously.  <em>Reject me, reject me, reject me…</em></p><p>“I… I’m not… gay…” he trailed off.</p><p>Of course he wasn’t.  The real Naruto wasn’t gay.</p><p>“I am,” I said.</p><p>I saw the way his body subconsciously recoiled from me.  Good.  It wasn’t true.</p><p>Then it sank in what I’d just done.  If this was the real world… and I’d just come out to Naruto…</p><p>My chest ached with a pain I’d never felt before.  If this was the real Naruto, and he was about to disappear from my life…</p><p>I didn’t want that.</p><p>His hand touched my cheek and my eyes snapped to him in surprise.</p><p>“Hey, look, um… don’t… I just… you caught me by surprise, okay?” he said, his expression softening.  The disgust had disappeared from his face.</p><p>“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I said, shoving him away and stalking outside.</p><p>“Sasuke?!”</p><p>I was directing everything that was happening in this world.</p><p>“Sasuke, hey!” Naruto cried, trying to stop me.</p><p>It wasn’t going to work.</p><p>I looked up at the swirling red moon.</p><p>“Fucking genjutsu,” I muttered, activating my rinnegan and watching the world bleed away.</p>
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